Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T05:37:58.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Evolution in source–sink environments: implications for niche conservatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2011

Robert D. Holt
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Jianguo Liu
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Vanessa Hull
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Anita T. Morzillo
Affiliation:
Oregon State University
John A. Wiens
Affiliation:
PRBO Conservation Science
Get access

Summary

Demographic sources and sinks arise from the interplay of spatial variations in birth and death rates, and movement between habitats. One way to view sources and sinks is that, in the former, individuals are well adapted to the local environment, whereas in the latter, individuals are poorly adapted. This raises the question of how adaptive evolution might influence the evolutionary stability of source–sink population structures. When can a species’ niche evolve, so that a habitat – now a sink – becomes a source? This chapter provides an overview of theoretical investigations into this question. The scenarios considered include the fate of single favorable mutants that improve adaptedness to a sink environment, quantitative genetic variation for single traits determining local fitness, and the influence of reciprocal dispersal from sinks to sources. The overall conclusion across models is that the harsher the sink (as assessed in terms of absolute fitness), the harder it may be for adaptive evolution to sculpt adaptation sufficiently to permit population persistence. Theoretical studies show that the rate of immigration can have a variety of impacts upon evolution in sinks, depending upon many details of genetics, life history, and demography. Such theoretical exercises are not merely academic exercises, because source–sink dynamics naturally arise in a wide range of applied evolutionary contexts (such as the control of agricultural pests, and in disease emergence across host species) where the management aim is to prevent evolution in focal species in particular habitats.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Antonovics, J. (1976). The nature of limits to natural selection. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 63: 224–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonovics, J., Newman, T. J. and Best, B. J. (2001). Spatially explicit studies on the ecology and genetics of population margins. In Integrating Ecology and Evolution in a Spatial Context (Silvertown, J. and Antonovics, J., eds.). Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, UK: 91–116.Google Scholar
Arditi, R., Perrin, N. and Saiah, H. (1991). Functional responses and heterogeneities: an experimental test with cladocerans. Oikos 60: 69–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barton, N. (2001). Adaptation at the edge of a species’ range. In Integrating Ecology and Evolution in a Spatial Context (Silvertown, J. and Antonovics, J., eds.). Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, UK: 365–392.Google Scholar
Blows, M. W. and Hoffmann, A. A. (2005). A reassessment of genetic limits to evolutionary change. Ecology 86: 1371–1384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boulding, E. G. (2008). Genetic diversity, adaptive potential, and population viability in changing environments. In Conservation Biology: Evolution in Action (Carroll, S. P. and Fox, C. W., eds.). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK:199–219.Google Scholar
Boulding, E. G. and Hay, T. K. (2001). Genetic and demographic parameters determining population persistence after a discrete change in the environment. Heredity 8: 313–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradshaw, A. D. (1991). Genostasis and the limits to evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (B) 333: 289–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bridle, J. R., Polechova, J., Kawata, M. and Butlin, R. K. (2010). Why is adaptation prevented at ecological margins? New insights from individual-based simulations. Ecology Letters 13: 485–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caswell, H. (1989). Matrix Population Models. Sinauer Press, Sunderland, MA.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. (2006). Modeling the evolutionary and ecological consequences of selection and adaptation in heterogeneous environments. Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 52: 467–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Courchamp, F., Berec, L. and Gascoigne, J. (2008). Allee Effects in Ecology and Conservation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diffendorfer, J. E. (1998). Testing models of source–sink dynamics and balanced dispersal. Oikos 81: 417–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doncaster, C. P., Clobert, J., Doligez, B., Gustafsson, L. and Danchin, E. (1997). Balanced dispersal between spatially varying local populations: an alternative to the source–sink model. American Naturalist 150: 425–445.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Figueira, W. F. and Crowder, L. B. (2006). Defining patch contribution in source–sink metapopulations: the importance of including dispersal and its relevance to marine systems. Population Ecology 48: 215–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fretwell, S. D. (1972). Populations in a Seasonal Environment. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Futuyma, D. J. (2010). Evolutionary constraint and ecological consequences. Evolution 64: 1865–1884.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garant, D., Forde, S. E. and Hendry, A. P. (2007). The multifarious effects of dispersal and gene flow on contemporary adaptation. Functional Ecology 21: 434–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gomulkiewicz, R. and Holt, R. D. (1995). When does evolution by natural selection prevent extinction?Evolution 49: 201–207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gomulkiewicz, R., Holt, R. D. and Barfield, M. (1999). The effects of density dependence and immigration on local adaptation and niche evolution in a black-hole sink environment. Theoretical Population Biology 55: 283–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. (1983). Immigration and the dynamics of peripheral populations. In Advances in Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology (Miyata, K. and Rhodin, A., eds.). Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA:680–694.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D. (1984). Spatial heterogeneity, indirect interactions, and the coexistence of prey species. American Naturalist 124: 377–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, R. D. (1985). Population dynamics in two-patch environments: some anomalous consequences of an optimal habitat distribution. Theoretical Population Biology 28: 181–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. (1996a). Adaptive evolution in source–sink environments: direct and indirect effects of density-dependence on niche evolution. Oikos 75: 182–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. (1996b). Demographic constraints in evolution: towards unifying the evolutionary theories of senescence and niche conservatism. Evolutionary Ecology 10: 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. (1997). On the evolutionary stability of sink populations. Evolutionary Ecology 11: 723–731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. (2003). On the evolutionary ecology of species ranges. Evolutionary Ecology Research 5: 159–178.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D. (2009). Bringing the Hutchinsonian niche into the 21st century: ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106: 19659–19665.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, R. D. and Barfield, M. (2008). Habitat selection and niche conservatism. Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 54: 295–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. and Barfield, M.Holt, R. D. and Barfield, M. (2011). Theoretical perspectives on the statics and dynamics of species’ ranges. American Naturalist 177: in press.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D. and Gaines, M. S. (1992). Analysis of adaptation in heterogeneous landscapes: implications for the evolution of fundamental niches. Evolutionary Ecology 6: 433–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. and Gomulkiewicz, R. (1997a). How does immigration influence local adaptation? A reexamination of a familiar paradigm. American Naturalist 149: 563–572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D. and Gomulkiewicz, R. (1997b). The evolution of species’ niches: a population dynamic perspective. In Case Studies in Mathematical Modelling: Ecology, Physiology, and Cell Biology (Othmer, H., Adler, F., Lewis, M. and Dallon, J., eds.). Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ: 25–50.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D.andGomulkiewicz, R. (2004). Conservation implications of niche conservatism and evolution in heterogeneous environments. InEvolutionary Conservation Biology (Ferrière, R., Dieckmann, U.andCouvet, D., eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK: 244–264.Google Scholar
Holt, R. D., Gomulkiewicz, R. and Barfield, M. (2003). The phenomenology of niche evolution via quantitative traits in a “black-hole” sink. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (B) 270: 215–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, R. D., Gomulkiewicz, R. and Barfield, M. (2004a). Temporal variation can facilitate niche evolution in harsh sink environments. American Naturalist 164: 187–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, R. D., Knight, T. M. and Barfield, M. (2004b). Allee effects, immigration, and the evolution of species’ niches. American Naturalist 163: 253–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, R. D., Barfield, M. and Gomulkiewicz, R. (2005). Theories of niche conservatism and evolution: could exotic species be potential tests? In Species Invasions: Insights into Ecology, Evolution, and Biogeography (Sax, D., Stachowicz, J. and Gaines, S. D., eds.). Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA:259–290.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G. E. (1957). Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22: 415–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, G. E. (1978). An Introduction to Population Ecology. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Kawecki, T. J. (1995). Demography of source–sink populations and the evolution of ecological niches. Evolutionary Ecology 9: 38–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawecki, T. J. (2000). Adaptation to marginal habitats: contrasting influence of dispersal on the fate of rare alleles with small and large effects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (B) 267: 1315–1320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kawecki, T. J. (2003). Sex-biased dispersal and adaptation to marginal habitats. American Naturalist 162: 415–426.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kawecki, T. J. (2004). Ecological and evolutionary consequences of source–sink population dynamics. In Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution of Metapopulations (Hanski, I. and Gaggiotti, O. E., eds.). Elsevier Academic Press, Burlington, MA: 387–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawecki, T. J. (2008). Adaptation to marginal habitats. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 39: 321–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawecki, T. J. and Holt, R. D.(2002). Evolutionary consequences of asymmetric dispersal rates. American Naturalist 160: 333–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kawecki, T. J., Barton, N. H. and Fry, J. D. (1997). Mutational collapse of fitness in marginal habitats and the evolution of ecological specialization. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 10: 407–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keddy, P. A. (1981). Experimental demography of the sand-dune annual, Cakile edentula, growing along an environmental gradient in Nova Scotia. Journal of Ecology 69: 615–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keddy, P. A. (1982). Population ecology on an environmental gradient: Cakile edentula on a sand dune. Oecologia 52: 348–355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kierstead, H. and Slobodkin, L. B. (1953). The size of water masses containing plankton blooms. Journal of Marine Research 12: 141–147.Google Scholar
Kirkpatrick, M. and Barton, N. H. (1997). Evolution of a species’ range. American Naturalist 150: 1–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lenormand, T. (2002). Gene flow and the limits to natural selection. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17: 183–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, S. (1976). Spatial patterning and the structure of ecological communities. Lectures in Mathematics in the Life Sciences 8: 1–35.Google Scholar
LoFaro, T. and Gomulkiewicz, R. (1999). Adaptation versus migration in demographically unstable populations. Journal of Mathematical Biology 38: 571–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, D. W. and Diffendorfer, J. E. (2004). Reciprocating dispersal by habitat-selecting white-footed mice. Oikos 107: 549–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orr, H. A. and Unckless, R. L. (2008). Population extinction and the genetics of adaptation. American Naturalist 172: 160–169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perron, G. G., Gonzalez, A. and Buckling, A. (2007). Source–sink dynamics shape the evolution of antibiotic resistance and its pleiotropic fitness cost. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (B) 274: 2351–2356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Polechova, J., Barton, N. and Marion, G. (2009). Species range: adaptation in space and time. American Naturalist 174: E186–E204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, T. (2007). Speciation in Birds. Roberts & Co., Publishers, Greenwood Village, CO.Google Scholar
Proulx, S. R. (2002). Niche shifts and expansion due to sexual selection. Evolutionary Ecology Research 4: 351–369.Google Scholar
Pulliam, H. R. (1988). Sources, sinks, and population regulation. American Naturalist 132: 652–661.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pulliam, H. R. (2000). On the relationship between niche and distribution. Ecology Letters 3: 349–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ronce, O. and Kirkpatrick, M. (2001). When sources become sinks: migrational meltdown in heterogeneous habitats. Evolution 55: 1520–1531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rousset, F. (1999). Reproductive value vs. sources and sinks. Oikos 86: 591–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runge, J. P., Runge, M. C. and Nichols, J. D. (2006). The role of local populations within a landscape context: defining and classifying sources and sinks. American Naturalist 167: 925–938.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sexton, J. P., McIntyre, P. J., Angert, A. L. and Rice, K. J. (2009). Evolution and ecology of species range limits. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 40: 415–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slatkin, M. (1985). Rare alleles as indicators of gene flow. Evolution 39: 53–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tufto, J. (2001). Effects of releasing maladapted individuals: a demographic-evolutionary model. American Naturalist 158: 331–340.Google ScholarPubMed
Turner, J. R. G. and Wong, H. Y. (2010). Why do species have a skin? Investigating mutational constraint with a fundamental population model. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 101: 213–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkinson, A. R. and Sutherland, W. J. (1995). Sources, sinks and pseudo-sinks. Journal of Animal Ecology 64: 126–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiens, J. J. and Graham, C. H. (2005). Niche conservatism: integrating evolution, ecology, and conservation biology. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 36: 519–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiens, J. J., Ackerly, D. D., Allen, A. P., Anacker, B. L., Buckley, L. B., Cornell, H. V., Damschen, E. I., Davies, T. J., Grytnes, J. A., Harrison, S. P., Hawkins, B. A., Holt, R. D., McCain, C. M.andStephens, P. R. (2010). Niche conservatism as an emerging principle in ecology and conservation biology. Ecology Letters 13: 1310–1324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Willi, Y., Van Buskirk, J. and Hoffmann, A. A. (2006). Limits to the adaptive potential of small populations. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37: 433–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, J. B. and Agnew, A. D. (1992). Positive-feedback switches in plant communities. Advances in Ecological Research 23: 263–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×